Britain’s nuclear waste and where to stick it
Date: Thursday, 15thNovember 2012
Venue: Cambrian Academy headquarters in Crown Lane, Conwy @ 6:30pm. Refreshments @ 6:00pm.
Abstract: Whatever the UK’s nuclear energy decisions, there is the very pressing problem of the UK’s legacy radioactive wastes that have to be dealt with. We have been producing high level radioactive wastes since the late 1940’s from weapons and nuclear power generation and this has left us with a heady mixture of complex ‘hot’ waste.
This includes the left overs from plutonium production and spent and re processed fuel rods. Much of it is situated at Sellafield in Cumbria and some of the earlier waste is in poorly contained open ponds.
In 2008, the UK decided to build an underground repository for this waste – but where? The nature of this legacy and the problem of where to stick it is a complex and very current saga.
Speaker Biography:
Professor Richard Pattrick, Executive Director, Professor of Earth Science and Senior Research Fellow, NNL, The University of Manchester
Professor Richard Pattrick’s research is in the fields of metallogenesis, pure and applied mineralogy and geochemistry; this work ranges from experimental investigations to field studies. The mineralogical investigations have focused on chalcogenides (esp. sulfides) and magnetic oxides, using experimental synthesis combined with spectroscopic analysis, including XAS techniques. The tetrahedrite group minerals have been a specific interest and more recently have focused on bio-nano mineralization produced by metal reducing bacteria. Metallogeneis has been focused on the base- and precious-metal mineralisation of the British Isles and worldwide, especially the mineralogical and genetic studies of mineral deposits, including the determination of their mineral chemistry, fluid chemistry, stable isotopic signatures and metallogenesis. Work using noble gases in fluid inclusions in the study of the formation of ancient mineral deposits is providing a novel insight into hydrothermal mineralisation.